At Fuse, we have the privilege of helping our customers enjoy their work more by providing an easy to use, beautifully designed inventory planning tool. As we’ve gotten to know our customers, we’ve been deeply impressed by how thoughtful, sharp and hard-working you are.

We’ve compiled data from over 150 customer interviews to send you one message: you’re not alone. In every single interview, our customers inevitably ask, “Are we the only ones using Excel and Google sheets?”

The answer is no, you are absolutely not. You’re not alone. That’s exactly why we at Fuse decided to tackle the challenge of inventory planning and management head-on.

90% of customers manage inventory in Excel

Almost 90% of our customers manage their inventory in a combination of Excel and Google Sheets, while just under 10% have moved on to build a custom system -- a costly and lengthy process. Typically, companies start thinking about a custom system at the 100 SKU mark when they’ve pushed their existing Excel models to a breaking point. Excel is crashing on a daily basis and procurement is nearly impossible to track in Google Sheets.

We asked Karan, Director of Ops at Boxed, a company bringing bulk wholesale shopping to mobile, why they built a custom system: “At Boxed, we needed backend inventory forecasting systems that were customized for our business model and flexible. We searched for a solution on the market and didn’t find anything that met our needs. This is why we chose to design something in-house.”

Custom inventory management systems have drawbacks

Of the companies we spoke to that have built a custom system, the top three reasons for building something in-house were not being able to find a system that meets their needs, not being able to afford existing systems and not wanting to spend a long time implementing an external solution.

Unfortunately, custom systems come with their own challenges. Most require at least one full-time engineer to maintain them, taking away valuable engineering talent from important product initiatives that could grow the business. This is exactly why most companies don’t devote a full-time engineer to maintaining their system. Inevitably, it fails to keep up with the growing organization’s needs and ultimately needs to be overhauled.

Building a custom system is expensive. The companies we’ve spoken to have spent anywhere from $200,000 to over $1,000,000 just to build it, excluding the cost of ongoing maintenance.

Fuse's mission is to change the frustrating status quo. Our favorite part of our job is talking to customers and improving your quality of life. Working at a fast-growing company is exciting and fun. We want to help you spend more time focusing on your business, not your inventory.